The lay offs were targeted heavily within the sales department, and especially within the BigDeals team.

"It is extremely difficult to make a business decision that will have an impact on our colleagues and their families," said Angie's List COO Mark Howell. "This painful step is part of an overall plan to improve our sales productivity and performance and establish a new performance-based measurement system by which we will evaluate our sales teams.

According to a company spokesman, Angie's List has approximately 2,000 employees nationwide.

"Our business remains sound and we are focused on continuing to make progress on our strategy," Howell said. "We expect to continue to add resources to our salesforce over time to support growth in both advertising and e-commerce revenue. This is a challenging time, but we have a strong and dedicated employee base that is committed to our continued success."